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Comment by davak | Hacker News Reader

See how much money your physician takes from drug companies.

https://www.cms.gov/openpayments/

As a physician I can tell you that this type of public reporting has radically decreased the amount of stuff that doctors take from drug companies.

Removing advertising from the TV will do the same. It is much easier for a physician to give a patient the most correct medication without these biases. Remember that in the US, we spend about 2-3X as much as anybody else for less length and quality of life.

http://qz.com/553181/americans-spend-nearly-three-times-as-m...

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I would argue the opposite. By creating a separate class of individual that receives information about medicines we obfuscate what the options are. Under the current model a doctor could say "You should take <x>" and I would have little to no exposure to alternatives" .

IMO the real issue is that advertising (not just pharmaceutical) is not very informative anymore, we need a return to fact based ads. No more "sexy" women draped over whatever, no more saccharine smily women glowing after their husband took <y> ... Ads today are propaganda.

> information about medicines

TV ads are not "information about medicines", that's just ridiculous. They are mind-games the advertisers play with potential customers in hope of squeezing more cash out of them.

You want true information? Read peer-review studies.

> Under the current model a doctor could say "You should take <x>" and I would have little to no exposure to alternatives

Right, 'cause doctors are evil like that. I just saw an ad revealing what doctors don't want me to know, I am totally going to believe it!

You could say similar things about political ads. They're mind-games. Do we want to get rid of them too?

ABSOLUTELY YES.

That we, as a society, allow people deceive us and to lie in our faces, and not only that - we've turned it into an respected occupation - still boggles my mind.

In order to ban lies, you need to entrust power in someone else to discern the lies from truth. But that someone else lies too.

It is simply intractable. Like the halting problem.

Exactly. That's why we opt for free speech. We allow people to lie and attempt to deceive and spin because we know that it's better for citizens to be accustomed to the marketing and somewhat robust against it than to trust some other higher power that can betray the unprotected and unaware masses.

I don't buy it. I think "we" didn't allow a thing, it's just that lying makes money, money gives power, and power can be used to keep your lying legal (and money can be used to make it be perceived as socially acceptable occupation).

And how do you get around the problem of who watches the watchers?

[edit add: Because I actually don't disagree with anything you said, but the solution you propose never seems to work]

that someone else in our current system are judges. I'm not sure i know of a justice system that doesnt eventually place the burden on a small number of people.

AFAIK systems hoping to discern truth eventually require a cannon.

Ads have always been propaganda.

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